Tens of thousands of travelers were facing cancellations and chaos on Friday – today, March 21 – as a fire near London’s Heathrow Airport knocked out power to one of the world’s top flight hubs, forcing it to halt operations.
Heathrow officials said the airport would remain closed until midnight, but the travel disruptions were expected to last into the weekend as airlines struggle to rebook passengers into and out of a hub that typically handles 1,300 flights a day.
As some London-bound travelers found themselves rerouted to other European cities, or had their flights sent back to their origins, the power outage raised stark questions about the resilience of Britain’s largest airport and why it appeared to be so reliant on a single electricity substation, where the giant fire broke out overnight.
Ed Miliband, Britain’s energy secretary, said early Friday morning that there was, at the time, “no suggestion there is any foul play,” but added that “we don’t yet have a real understanding of what caused the fire.”
Later on Friday, the London police said counterterrorism specialists were leading the investigation into the cause of the blaze, “given the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure.”
Mr. Miliband said the outage had also knocked at least one backup generator.
The inability to quickly restore power after such a major outage is likely to be at the center of questions about the reliability of Britain’s infrastructure.
A Heathrow representative said in a statement that significant delays would be expected in the coming days and warned that “passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”
As many as 290,000 passengers could be affected by the closure, according to Cirium, an aviation data company.
The substation fire
The fire at the North Hyde electricity substation was under control, London’s fire brigade said in an update around 6:30 a.m. local time.
Around 150 people were evacuated from the area around the substation after the fire broke out late Thursday night.
The energy company National Grid said that about 4,900 customers remained without power as of Friday morning. There were no reports of injuries, officials said.
Airlines scramble: About 80 airlines operate at Heathrow, and they were diverting inbound flights to others airports in Britain, elsewhere in Europe or sending them back to their origins, while scrambling to rebook journeys.
The worst affected airline was British Airways, which had about 340 flights scheduled to land at Heathrow on Friday, according to data from Flightradar24.
Heathrow scene: Police and emergency vehicles were parked at the otherwise deserted drop-off zone outside one terminal in the early morning, and airport employees turned away travelers.
Airline counters stood empty, digital flight information screens were blank, passageways were dimly lit by emergency lighting and escalators stood still — an eerie scene at the usually thronging airport.
By the numbers: Heathrow is Britain’s largest airport, with two runways and four terminals serving more than 230 destinations in 90 countries. Last year, some 83.9 million passengers and 1.6 million metric tons of cargo flew through the hub.
Counterterrorism police lead investigation: London’s Metropolitan Police Service said in a statement that counterterrorism specialists are leading the investigation into the fire, citing “the specialist resources and capabilities within that command that can assist in progressing this investigation at pace to minimize disruption and identify the cause.”
British Airways said it would give customers booked to fly to or from Heathrow over the weekend the option to rebook on a later date at no charge.
The airline, which has the most flights at Heathrow, canceled all short-haul flights today and said it was reviewing its long-haul schedule.
Reporting from London
Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, a global trade association of airlines, criticized Heathrow Airport, saying in a statement that the fire and power outage raised serious questions: “Firstly, how is it that critical infrastructure — of national and global importance — is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative. If that is the case — as it seems — then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.”
The overnight blaze that knocked out power at Heathrow Airport also affected tens of thousands of other customers, including many homes, and forced the evacuation of dozens of residents because of smoky conditions.
But as the sun rose on Friday, power had been restored for most residents.
National Grid, the company that operates major systems that transport power from generation plants to consumption hubs in England and Wales, said it had restored power to 62,000 customers as of 6 a.m. local time.
The fire at its North Hyde substation, one of the facilities that provides power to Heathrow Airport, was brought under control a short time later, around 6:30 a.m.
Just before 11 a.m., a spokeswoman for National Grid said in an email that about 4,900 customers remained without power, but added that the utility was working to restore service.
The North Hyde facility receives high voltage power and converts it into lower voltage current, which is distributed through the local network to smaller substations; from there, it flows to homes and businesses.
North Hyde is one of multiple points that feed Heathrow Airport, supplying the area northeast of the airport, according to a recent planning document.
The cause of the blaze remains unclear.
Ed Miliband, Britain’s energy secretary, said in a radio interview that there was no reason to suspect foul play, adding, however, that there still was no “real understanding of what caused the fire.”
In an interview with the British broadcaster Sky News on Friday, Mr. Miliband said the blaze had affected a number of back up generators, further complicating the response.
The Metropolitan Police in London said in a statement that its counterterrorism specialists were leading the investigation into the substation fire and resulting power outage, “given the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure.”
The police said that “while there is currently no indication of foul play we retain an open mind at this time.”
Some travelers were able to check in at hotels around Heathrow, but rooms were filling up fast.
Calvin Kim flew in from France on Thursday and stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn ahead of a flight to the U.S.
When he found out the flight was canceled, he tried to stay another night, but the hotel was booked.
“I got here last night, woke up and found out I’m not going home today,” he said. Kim reserved a room at another hotel and set off to find it. He said he hoped to return to Seattle tomorrow, “but who knows?”
In a statement, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “receiving regular updates” about the situation at Heathrow and was “in close contact with partners on the ground.”
He added that he knew the outage was “causing distress and disruption, especially for those traveling or without power in their homes,” and thanked the emergency services.
At least 1,300 flights in and out of London’s Heathrow Airport were disrupted on Friday as the airport, Europe’s busiest, was shut down after a major nearby fire caused a power outage.
More flights are expected to be canceled or delayed in the coming days as airlines navigate the ripple effects of the airport’s closure, which is affecting air travel worldwide.
About 220,000 passengers had been expected to travel through Heathrow on Friday, according to Flightrader24, the live flight tracking service.
Heathrow said it had no choice but to keep the airport closed until 11.59 p.m. on Friday.
“We know this will be disappointing for passengers, and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation,” an airport spokesman said in a statement.
If your travel has been affected by the closure, here’s what you need to know.
Passengers scheduled to travel in and out of Heathrow have been advised not to go to the airport, and to contact their airline for further information.
On Friday, the police turned away passengers trying to reach Heathrow, and cars in the area were diverted.
Most major airlines have updated information on their websites with details about flight disruptions and instructions for rescheduling canceled flights. You can also check their social media channels for updates.
If your flight departs from an airport in Britain, arrives there on a British or European Union airline, or arrives in an E.U. airport on a British airline, you are covered by British law.
Airlines are legally required to provide care and assistance for delays of more than two hours for short-haul flights, more than three hours for medium-haul flights and more than four hours for long-haul flights. You can check how the law applies to your flight here.
Under the regulations, airlines must provide a reasonable amount of food and drink, a means of communication, accommodations for passengers delayed until the next day, and transportation to and from the accommodations or a passenger’s home.
“The airline must provide you with these items until it is able to fly you to your destination, no matter how long the delay lasts or what has caused it,” the U.K Civil Aviation Authority says on its website.
Sometimes during major disruptions like the Heathrow Airport closure, airlines find themselves understaffed, overwhelmed and unable to keep up with passenger demand.
In such cases, the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority advises passengers to pay out of pocket and keep receipts to apply for reimbursement, and to ensure that costs are reasonable.
Luxury hotels and alcohol will not be covered by airlines.
Kennedy Airport in New York had the most flights scheduled to arrive at Heathrow today. Some of the more than 20 flights that were supposed to arrive from J.F.K. were diverted to Manchester, Glasgow or Reykjavik, Iceland. Others that were in the air at the time of the closure returned to New York.
An official with the London Fire Brigade said in a briefing that the organization would be investigating the cause of the fire at an electrical substation that led to the power outage, alongside London’s Metropolitan Police.
The blaze involved “a transformer comprising 25,000 liters of cooling oil that was fully alight,” and about 10 percent of the original fire there was still burning, according to Jonathan Smith, the brigade’s deputy commissioner. He said there was still no power at Terminal 2 or Terminal 4 at Heathrow, but added, “I am pleased to report no one has been injured.”
A backup generator’s failure raises questions about Heathrow’s contingency planning.
The fire at an electrical substation that crippled Heathrow Airport also took out at least one of the main backup systems, Britain’s energy secretary said, contributing to what officials say will be at least a daylong disruption at Europe’s busiest air travel hub.
“There was a backup generator, but that was also affected by the fire, which gives a sense of how unusual, unprecedented it was,” Ed Miliband, Britain’s energy secretary, said in an interview with Sky TV.
Mr. Miliband said the National Grid, which operates the country’s electrical systems, was trying to route power through a second backup system, but even that was proving difficult given the scale of the fire at the substation, which is near the airport.
The failure of at least one backup system to quickly restore power after such a major outage is likely to be at the center of questions about the reliability of Britain’s infrastructure in the aftermath of the fire and airport closure.
Frustrated passengers and some London residents were expressing disbelief and outrage on social media.
Mr. Miliband said the government would focus on understanding the cause of the outage, telling Sky TV: “Obviously, with any incident like this, you will want to understand why it happened and what if any lessons it has for our infrastructure.”
A Heathrow spokesman said the airport had many backup systems designed to support different parts of the operation.
The official said that more information would be released later in the day about how the backup systems were affected and why they were not able to keep the airport open after the fire.
National Grid officials did not immediately respond to an email requesting information about the backup systems.
Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, released a statement thanking emergency responders for working overnight to tackle the fire that caused the outage at Heathrow.
He said electricity suppliers were “working hard to restore power.”
“I know this will be hugely frustrating for the many thousands expecting to travel to and from Heathrow today, the families who have had their power cut and commuters who have had their journeys disrupted,” Khan added.
Aerial video captures an eerie stillness at Heathrow Airport, normally one of the world’s busiest, as planes remain grounded.
The Heathrow Express, a direct train line between the airport and Paddington Station, is ferrying airport and airline staff, along with a few redirected passengers, away from the airport. I was able to hop on at no charge. Usually a ticket costs around 25 pounds ($32). According to the line’s website, no passengers are allowed to board at Paddington.
Brendan Hartdigan, 30, and Amy Goeckel, 32, were stranded at Rome’s main airport while trying to return to Denver after a two-week honeymoon in Europe. T
hey had passed through airport security en route to London before learning that Heathrow was closed.
They said they were told that the earliest they could fly to Heathrow is Monday.
“So we’re here on our honeymoon. We’ve been traveling around Europe for the last two weeks. Rome was our last stop, and we’re due to fly out back to Denver with a layover in Heathrow. And we got to the airport early this morning and went through security just to realize at about 7:30 that all flights were canceled to Heathrow today. So we’ve been waiting here for about three hours,” the couple said.
Airlines are scrambling to rebook travelers.
About 80 airlines operate at Heathrow, and they were diverting inbound flights to others airports in Britain, elsewhere in Europe or sending them back to their origin, while scrambling to rebook journeys.
“This will clearly have a significant impact on our operation and our customers,” British Airways said in a statement. The airline was the most affected as it had about 340 flights scheduled to land at Heathrow on Friday, according to data from Flightradar24.
The airline had redirected all flights already on their way to Heathrow on Friday morning to other airports in Britain.
Virgin Atlantic, another British airline, said it had canceled all flights until 9:30 p.m. London time, “with the rest of today’s schedule currently under review,” it said in a statement.
The airline was asking customers to not travel to Heathrow or their scheduled departure airport if Heathrow was their destination and not to contact customer services.
Instead, they said travelers should check their flight status on the airline’s website and people with canceled flights would be emailed rebooking details.
Air France had canceled eight return flights from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport to Heathrow on Friday, but flights to other airports in Britain were operating as normal, the airline said.
KLM, a Dutch airline, said it had canceled three return flights from Amsterdam to London Heathrow and would rebook passengers. But the airline said that it would try to accommodate passengers with an “urgent need” to fly to London by placing them on flights to an airport near London.
Lufthansa, a German airline, said all customers on flights in and out of Heathrow have been rebooked, but it urged customers to keep their contact details updated.
Nine flights by Qatar Airways between Heathrow and Hamad International Airport near Doha, were affected.
For example, one flight was redirected to Frankfurt and another to Brussels.
Air India had canceled most of its flights to Heathrow, though one returned to Mumbai and another was diverted to Frankfurt.
Qantas, an Australian airline, said its Singapore to London and Perth to London services were diverted to Paris on Friday, with buses arranged to take customers to London.
Flights departing from Sydney and Perth on Friday and expected to land in London on Saturday morning were still scheduled to run as normal.
On their websites, most airlines say canceled flights are rebooked free of charge. Costs are likely to mount for airlines as they redirect flights and compensate customers for hotel rooms, food, transportation and other costs related to upended schedules.
Shares in airline companies dropped in European trading.
Though the losses were easing by midmorning, shares in IAG, the parent company of British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia and two other airlines, were down about 1 percent.
Air France-KLM shares dropped about 1.6 percent.
Ryanair, an Irish airline, said it had added eight “rescue” flights to its schedule for Friday and Saturday between Dublin and London Stansted airports.
Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s busiest, said that 30 flights bound for or arriving from Heathrow were canceled today, and that it had accepted six additional planes destined for Heathrow that had to be rerouted because of the closure.
Reporting on logistics and trade
The closure of Heathrow Airport could delay the shipment of a significant amount of goods and packages, causing disruption for businesses that rely on air freight.
Nearly half of all British air cargo, measured by weight, went through Heathrow in 2023, according to the airport, and 70 percent when measured by value.
Among the most-shipped items are pharmaceuticals and salmon.
Several police and emergency vehicles are in the otherwise deserted drop-off zone at Terminal 3 at Heathrow.
Staff members are standing in front of the doors, asking the handful of passengers who are still showing up to leave, and directing them to nearby train stations.
The flight information board is blank.
Looking through the window, airline counters are empty and the departures area is eerily quiet.
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam received the most flights diverted from Heathrow, according to Flightradar24, a flight tracking website.
Many flights that were in the air when the airport was closed returned to their origin, but of those that were already near London, the most — seven — went to Amsterdam, followed by Frankfurt, London Gatwick Airport, Shannon Airport in western Ireland and Dulles International Airport
Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris seemed to be running as usual.
At the check-in counter for London flights, an Air France employee said the airline was working to help passengers who were supposed to connect at Heathrow.
“I know that several passengers were put on a flight going directly to New York from Paris,” she said. “I don’t think anyone is waiting around without a solution.”
Hundreds of people whose flights were diverted from Heathrow to Gatwick, London’s second-largest airport, were getting their bearings and planning their next moves.
Families sat together on the ground, and long lines of passengers trying to get help, rebook flights or check in snaked around the South Terminal.
Phumzile Nkabinde, 55, a nurse traveling to Charlotte, N.C. from Johannesburg, was supposed to change planes at Heathrow but ended up at Gatwick.
She was in line to rebook her flight when an airport employee told her she would be better off getting a hotel and waiting for British Airways to do the rebooking.
“Keep receipts for your hotel,” he said.
“And for my food and drinks,” she quickly added.
“Don’t go mad,” he said. “OK, go mad.”
“I’m mad, emotionally!” she said. “So I need something to fix that.”
London’s Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest travel crossroads in the world. It handles about 1,300 flights a day, from more than 80 airlines. Nearly six million people and more than 130,000 tons of cargo moved through the London airport last month.
So what happens when a hub this size grinds to a halt?
First, the planes full of people and cargo already on their way to Heathrow have to find another place to land.
Countless passengers have to find hotel rooms wherever they end up.
Crews and pilots must take legally mandated rest.
Airlines have to figure out how to reroute planes and cargo.
Ian Petchenik, the director of communications at Flightradar24, a flight tracking website, described it as “a million moving pieces that are all trying to get where they need to go.”
Most major international airlines operate flights into Heathrow, which Mr. Petchenik called the “crown jewel of most international airlines,” and it receives flights from the widest variety of air carriers of any airport in the world.
When Heathrow shut down early Friday, 120 flights were already heading there.
Some were able to land nearby, at other London airports or in Birmingham or Manchester.
Others were redirected to continental European destinations like Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
One British Airlines flight that left from New York’s Kennedy International Airport ended up in Reykjavik, Iceland.
A Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo went to Helsinki, Finland.
In Taipei, the day’s only flight to Heathrow took off shortly after 9 a.m.
The plane had only made it past Hanoi when it turned around and headed back to Taipei, according to data from Flightradar24.
But most flights ended up neither where they had started nor where they planned to go, setting off a global logistical scramble for hotel rooms and alternate flights as passengers tried to figure out how to make it to sightseeing tours, business meetings and family events.
The high number of rerouted planes makes the intricate work of air traffic control even more complicated than usual.
“You stuff more aircraft into the same airspace, you’ve got more complexity,” said Martin Craigs, who spent decades in the aviation industry, most recently as president of the Aerospace Forum Asia, a Hong Kong-based association that represents aviation equipment suppliers.
Most airports are prepared to handle slightly higher than usual numbers of incoming aircraft, Mr. Craigs said. “The system has been developed to deal with worst-case scenarios.”
Officials in London said they expected the disruption at Heathrow to continue for several days.
It could also take days for airlines to rebook the hundreds of thousands of passengers they expect to be affected.
The shutdown of an important global transit hub for such a prolonged period of time is “unprecedented,” Mr. Petchenik said.
A rare, similarly extensive disruption occurred in 2010 when a volcano eruption in Iceland grounded more than 100,000 international flights over several days.
Air India, which counts Heathrow as one of its biggest international destinations with about 40 flights a week, said one flight headed there was returning to Mumbai, while another had been diverted to Frankfurt. The airline’s other flights to Heathrow on Friday were canceled.
Some travelers were headed to a wedding, some to a funeral. Others were leaving for a vacation in Iceland, taking a business trip to Britain or returning home from a honeymoon in Italy.
But on Friday, tens of thousands of passengers in Europe and beyond were stranded hundreds of miles from their destinations as a power outage at London Heathrow, the main airport serving the British capital, caused major disruptions to air travel.
“We are stuck,” said James Porritt, who was supposed to leave early Friday for Australia until his flight was canceled. Mr. Porritt said that he and his wife, who were staying at a hotel at Heathrow, were not going to be able to leave until Sunday.
“She is up in the room worrying,” he said of his wife. “She has been crying from stress.”
Passengers at the second-largest airport serving London, Gatwick, which received many flights that had been headed to Heathrow, stood in line at help desks, sat on the ground or frantically refreshed airline websites.
“This place is a mess,” said Patricia Bradley, 69, noting that she had lined up in “about six different places.”
The scene at Gatwick was in stark contrast to the eerie quiet at Heathrow, usually one of the world’s busiest airports. The drop-off zone at Terminal 3 was deserted; runways and airline counters were empty.
Denyse Kumbuka, a teacher who had been trying to get home to Dallas, said that she might have to try to sleep in the terminal because she could not afford a hotel. “I don’t have a choice,” she said.
The power outage, caused by a fire at an electrical substation near Heathrow, forced the authorities to close the airport for all of Friday. They warned that flight disruptions could last for days.
A glance at Heathrow’s flight information board on Friday morning gave a sense of just how big the shock waves from the closure would be. Flights from Brunei, India and Vietnam were scheduled to land, and passengers had been expecting to board planes taking them to dozens of destinations: Miami, Singapore, Tokyo… the list went on.
“I am extremely frustrated,” Tori Allen, 31, who was supposed to leave London for a birthday trip to Iceland on Friday night, said, adding, “It’s all quite chaotic.” She had not heard anything from her airline, she said, but she went ahead and booked new tickets for Saturday morning, for double the price.
Travelers took to social media to complain about the disruption and ask the airlines for help. One wrote that she could no longer run the half-marathon she had prepared for, another that he had had to pull out of a Pokémon Go championship.
In the Chinese city of Shenzhen, Lukas Zou was among the travelers waiting for news about a flight to London. Mr. Zou, who works at a trading firm, said that he had learned of the Heathrow shutdown just as he was about to board his Shenzhen Airlines plane, scheduled to depart at 1:45 p.m. local time.
“With so much luggage, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I’ve already booked a hotel room in London, and it can’t be canceled,” Mr. Zou said.
Dozens of airlines fly to Heathrow from about 180 places worldwide. Many planes already in the air were forced to divert elsewhere. Kennedy Airport in New York had the most flights scheduled to arrive at Heathrow on Friday. Some of the more than 20 flights that were supposed to arrive from Kennedy were diverted to Manchester, in northwestern England; to Glasgow; or to Reykjavik, Iceland.
As many as 290,000 passengers traveling in or out of Heathrow could be affected by the closure, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company. On Friday, 669 flights were scheduled to take off from Heathrow, Cirium said.
Heathrow is the main hub for British Airways, which said that it was redirecting flights to other airports in Britain, where possible.
At Fiumicino Airport in Rome, dozens stood in line at the British Airways counter. The airport’s information board showed that four British Airways flights were canceled on Friday morning.
A group of high school students from Arizona, planning to fly home via Heathrow after a week in Italy, arrived at Fiumicino to disappointment. “We didn’t find out the flight was canceled until half of our party had checked in,” said Angel Brady, a chaperone on the trip. She said that the group would miss its connecting flight to Phoenix.
North American, Asian and Australian airlines were also affected. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Air Canada and JetBlue were among those having to divert their Heathrow-bound jets or return them to the airports they had come from.
Credit: New York Times (NYT)
